Varvara Massalitinova

Who was Varvara Massalitinova?

Varvara Osipovna Massalitinova was a Russian and Soviet theatre and film actress.

She began acting at an amateur theatre club in the Siberian city of Tomsk, then moved to Moscow and studied acting under A. Lensky at Moscow Theatrical school from which she graduated in 1901, as an actress.

From 1901 to 1945 Varvara Massalitinova was a permanent member of the legendary troupe at Maly Academic Theatre in Moscow. There she worked on stage with such actors as Ermolova, Yelena Gogoleva, A. Yablochkina, Vera Pashennaya, Aleksandr Yuzhin, Aleksandr Ostuzhev, Vladimir Davydov, Konstantin Zubov, Stepan Kuznetsov, Nikolai Annenkov, Mikhail Tsaryov, Igor Ilyinsky and many other notable Russian actors. She became famous in 1902 after her powerful stage performances as Korobochka in Nikolai Gogol's classic drama Dead Souls. Among her best-known stage roles were such classic parts as the officer's widow in the 1903 staging of Revizor, Merchutkina in Jubiley, based on a play by Anton Chekhov, and Kukushkina in the 1911 staging of Dokhodnoe Mesto. Over the course of her stage career Massalitinova established herself as one of the best performers in the classic plays by Aleksandr Ostrovsky.